Returning North with the Spring

Join us on Wednesday, March 29 at 7:00 pm for the NH Humanities program “Returning North with the Spring: retracing the journey of naturalist Edwin Way Teale,” a talk by John Harris, cosponsored by Cook Memorial Library and the Tamworth Conservation Commission.

In 1947, Edwin Way Teale, the most popular naturalist in the decade between Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, followed the progress of spring over four months from the Everglades to the summit of Mount Washington. His best-selling book, North with the Spring, recounts the epic journey he and his wife Nellie undertook.

In 2012, John Harris set out to retrace Teale’s route, stopping at unfamiliar wild places on the same calendar date on which Teale visited. Using Teale’s journal notes and photographs, Harris examined and compared changes in the flora, fauna, and lives of the people along the way. His account documents the losses, details the transformations, and celebrates the victories, for a remarkable number of east coast refuges have grown wilder during the intervening years.

John R. Harris is currently Projects Coordinator for the Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture at Franklin Pierce University. He holds a PhD in British and American literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has taught courses in nature writing, environmental literacy, regional history, American literature and composition at Franklin Pierce University. In addition, he has organized and helped to edit two regional anthologies—Where the Mountain Stands Alone and Beyond the Notches: Stories of North Country New Hampshire.